we’re riding around in golf carts on hot july nights  
and holding drippy ice cream cones while watching fireworks. 
we’re screaming eat the rich! in the backyard at 3 a.m. 
even though we know it’ll tick off the neighbors. 
we’re awake when we should be asleep, but look, i've never felt so alive. 
we could run away tonight and no one could stop us. 
we could crash a car or start a revolution at the governor’s mansion. 
we could do absolutely anything—or at least, we like to think so, 
‘cause we’re young and free and teetering on the edge between summer and hell. 
we’re young and we think we’re free. 
or maybe we know better and we’re just pretending anyway, 
pretending we don’t feel the chains of death rattling at our heels, 
waiting to steal us away. 
maybe we’re too young and stupid to be afraid of death, 
or maybe Death is our friend, and he’s coming to visit. 
it doesn’t matter anyway. who cares if you die at sixteen or eighty-six, 
when nothing means anything? 
here’s the secret about nihilism we didn’t learn in school: 
when nothing means anything, we get to decide what matters to us. 
 
another couple kids were shot the other day, 
and maybe we’re next. 
so we’ve gotta run, gotta run, as though if we just push ourselves hard enough 
we can prove we’re worthy of existence. 
c’mon, we’ve gotta outrun the bullets, outrun the fascists, 
outrun our future selves who act just like our parents. 
we’re speeding down the street toward the fires of hell— 
oh wait, that’s just the earth. 
it doesn’t matter. we’re still young.